We had decided to go to a full moon party in Koh Phanagan, and with a week before this occurred, we decided to go to Koh Samui first. From Chiang Mai we took a flight to Surat Thani, a bus to the port in Donask, and from there a ferry to Koh Samui. The whole process was painless, and aided by snazy stickers, which adorn both the traveller and their luggage. These are a constant throughout travel in Thailand, and serves to mark hopeless “farangs” allowing travel agents to guide you to your destination.
We spent the first two days relaxing on the beach or at the pool of the resort where we were staying. We also began our preparation for the full moon party and may have involved a bucket or two of the Thai whiskey. FYI: Sang som is much better than Laotian tiger penis whiskey.
Beach life
Anthong National Marine Park:
From Koh Samui you can take a boat cruise to the nearby Angthong National Marine Park, and most of the time you can spend the night camping there. This is what we wanted to do. However, the park closes for maintenance from November 1st thru mid-December, and since the boats don’t run in bad weather overnight tours stop on the 29th of Oct (we wanted to go the 30th). So we decided on a day trip, complete with kayaking and snorkeling. I was told that it was a very nice trip, and that the lagoon was beautiful, but for me it was probably the worst day of travelling yet.
When I was young I got horrible motion sickness but over the years I outgrew it and was mostly fine when travelling. The trip to Anthong felt like I was making up for all those years. Even though I had taken gravel I spent most of the 2 hour boat ride being sick.
Equipped with something that was apparently stronger than gravel, I spent most of the return trip sleeping on the deck of the boat and felt decent by the time we returned to the hotel.
A memorable trip to Angthong National Park
Koh Samui is pretty well developed and we spent the next day taking in a couple of the more interesting things to see. Of course this included eating at another night market, but also included us doning some pretty sweet jackets and hats and hitting up an icebar. Afterall, wouldn’t want to get soft and forget what it is to be Canadian – O wait thats exactly what I’m doing 🙂 . We also took in a ladyboy cabernet show. The singers were pretty talented, and it was definitely worth the 350 baht price (this included a drink)
Koh Samui night life – icebars and ladyboy cabernets
The night before we left we also took in a fish and thai foot massage, definitely an interesting experience and it left my feet probably the cleanest they had been since I left home (it didn’t last).
Fish Foot Massage
The next morning, and after taking some gravel, we set forth on a ferry to Koh Phangan, with me hoping that this boat trip would be better than the last. Fortunately it was.
The Travelling Scientist 